Sisters
by JantoJones
Summary: A rescue goes wrong. (Written for the LJ Section VII 'Short Affair Challenge.)


**Prompts – Nasty/Silver**

Illya landed, with a grunt and face down, on the hard floor of the cell. The interrogation had been brutal, leaving him bruised, bloody and disorientated, but he'd yielded nothing. His injuries, however, were the least of his concerns. Illya had failed half of his assignment and it looked as though he would probably fail the other half.

Kuryakin, along with an agent named Peter Kershaw, had been tasked with the rescue of a geneticist and his two young daughters. THRUSH had taken the children as a cynical means of controlling the doctor. The whole mission had become a debacle. Dr Fry had taken the agent's arrival as a cue to try and save his daughters; which resulted in him being taken down in a hail of bullets. Kershaw had attempted to push the doctor out of the line of fire, and had been killed outright. Feeling that there was no point in getting killed also, Illya had surrendered. He knew that if they missed even one scheduled check-in, Napoleon was waiting to come in with a second wave.

Groaning, Illya rolled onto his back and was met with the frightened and tear-streaked faces of two blonde-haired girls. For a brief moment, in the silvery moonlight which shone through the small, barred window, the girls looked, for all the world, like his long-dead sisters. He knew, of course that they weren't Mariya and Yelena. These were the daughters of Dr Fry.

"Are you alright?" Emily queried, holding a protective arm around her younger sister's shoulders.

"I'm fine," Illya answered automatically. "My name is Illya Kuryakin. You are Emily and Jessica, yes?"

The girls nodded.

"Where's my daddy?" Jessica asked, clinging onto Emily. "Did the nasty men kill him?"

"Yes they did."

The child instantly began crying again. Her big sister tried to comfort her, while trying very hard not to cry herself. Illya knew how it felt to see a parent murdered, so knew he could offer no consolation to the children.

"Will they kill us too Mr Kurin. . . Kryaki… Kuryakny. . .?"

"Not if I can help it," he vowed, unsure if he would even be able to keep the vow. "And call me Illya."

Slowly and cautiously, Illya got to his feet. The wave of sickening dizziness that accompanied the move served to remind him of the blows he'd taken about the head. Clinging to the wall, he staggered to the door and peered out through the small opening. There was no-one to be seen. Turning back to the girls, he almost passed out as the room seemed to lurch around him.

"Help me to the cot please, Mariya," he asked.

The older girl immediately let go of Jessica and came to Illya's aid.

"My name is Emily," she reminded him, as she helped him to lie down.

"Of course," he answered, before losing consciousness.

Illya wasn't out for long, and when he woke, he found the girls staring at him. He had a blinding headache, and the last thing he needed were his sisters trying to annoy him.

"Mariya, Yelena, ukhodit'" _(Mariya, Yelena, go away.)_

The children looked at each other with puzzlement, having no idea what he had just said.

"Mr Illya, will somebody come and help us?"

Pulling himself into a sitting position, Illya beckoned for the girls to sit either side of him. Despite being wary of the strange man, they snuggled up beside him and he held them close.

"Don't worry," he slurred. "My friend will come for us. Until then, I will keep you safe from the soldiers and the dogs."

His head fell back and he was, once again, insensible.

"Is Mr Illya okay?" Jessica whispered to her sister. "There weren't any soldiers or dogs."

"I think he banged his head," the older girl replied, hoping that he was right about his friend.

MFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFUMFU

Illya groaned loudly when he emerged into the, all too familiar, surroundings of U.N.C.L.E. medical; partially with pain and partially with in inevitability of ending up there again. As expected, Napoleon was sitting by his beside.

"The children?"

"They're okay and unharmed, Tovarisch," Solo assured him. "Which is more than can be said for you. While you were out you kept asking for Mariya and Yelena."

Napoleon was aware of who the names had belonged to, and from Illya's rare stories of his childhood, he could understand how the Fry girls had brought them to mind.

"It's a long time since I thought of them," Illya replied, surprised. "I hope Jessica and Emily can deal with their father's death better than I did mine."

"The difference is, they still have their mother," Napoleon told him. "Besides, even without you father's guidance, you turned out alright."

Illya smiled. "Thank you Napoleon. That is high praise indeed."

He then became subdued. Solo knew his partner well enough to know what the problem might be.

"You're berating yourself for the deaths of Agent Kershaw and Dr Fry, aren't you?"

"The whole assignment went wrong," he said, sadly. "I have no excuse for the failure, but at least you were able to get the children out."

"Got you out too don't forget. Failures happen, Tovarisch. That's just the way it goes sometimes."

Illya nodded drowsily and drifted back to sleep. Napoleon watched, as his partner dozed, and wondered if the stubborn Russian would ever let go of the misplaced guilt of losing his family. A guilt he insisted on imprinting on every innocent death he failed to prevent.

The End


End file.
